I’ve been a long time fan of google transliterate – and have been using it for a couple of years for all my hindi tweets. Just like this one -

But I’ve always missed the translate functionality which was available on google for a host of other languages. Finally, it has arrived for Hindi as well- and man it’s awesome!
I tried with a few simple translations from English to Hindi, just to warm up – and to please google.

Pretty cool! So far, so good. And if Google is the big daddy of all internet companies, twitter is the son of all internet companies, isn’t it?

Ohoh… screwed up. Never mind google, the छोटे लला translation for “small sonny” still impressed me a lot
Overwhelmed with the google awesomeness, I gave it one real compliment.

Oops. I guess that’s what google translate really is. :-/ Try it yourself here

Facebook has added the ‘Like’ functionality for the web that we all like so much (no pun intended!). And guess what, it’s dead simple to make each post on your blog likable.

Now, assuming you want to create this for each post on your blog (it makes little sense to like a category or tag or the blog itself, although it can be done! ), you just need to add this button on each post that you create. For that, all you need is the php file which is included only on single blog posts, and its permalink. For wordpress, the file is called ’single.php’ and is included within your theme. So browse to your wp-content directory, then your plugin’s name, and then edit the ’single.php’ in it.

The code that you will need on single.php can be generated here. Facebook presents to you a widget, through which you can create your custom ‘like’ button. In the ‘URL to like’, include <?php the_permalink() ?>, it’s the wordpress php code for generating URL for each post. Go ahead and change any other values you would like to tinker with.

Finally click on ‘Get Code’, and include this code in the ’single.php’ of your blog. You’re done!

It’s too simple to be missed even by the people who don’t know abc about php or wordpress, and the kind of virality this feature has is immense. Gone are the days when you used to customize your blog for keywords and optimize each post for search engines just to be seen and get more traffic. Facebook provides us with social sharing outside of facebook, even easier than tweeting, IMHO.

And why doesn’t it make sense to still support the evil browser

As a web developer, I have been disappointed, disheartened, frustrated, and mostly infuriated by IE6. If you don’t know what is IE6, most probably you are using it right now. Now, I don’t want to get into the technical details of IE6 and why it sucks. I’ll just logically prove to you why supporting IE6 won’t help your business. Without any doubt we can assume that the only people who use IE6 are:
1) People who are just plain stupid (aka fools): These people don’t know what a browser is, and just click on the start button of their XP boxes and click on “Internet”.
2) Grandmas (aka grandmas): I wouldn’t say they are stupid, but they are likely to use IE6 for the same reason as above.
3) People who surf the net from cyber cafes(aka ‘poor people, hungry people’ or pphp ): They don’t have any other options in many cases. Too poor to own a computer, and too naive to demand a better browser. Some references to pphps can be found here and here.
4) People whose companies have blocked installation of other browsers and applications (aka handcuffed): Tch tch… sometimes these good old normal people (even internet savvy, you may say) might not be able to use another browser because of their companies. Enterprise apps are many a times built for IE6.
5) People who develop and test their sites on IE6(aka developers): Poor people like us, who have a job to protect their site on IE6, and still make it work on other browsers.

After we have established the users for IE6, we can analyse the web to see why it’s used. And why making your site work in IE6 is not helping you in any way. Let’s consider the broad categories of websites/web applications one is likely to encounter:

1) E-commerce – Suppose you’re running your e-commerce site, do you think anyone using a paleolithic browser like IE6 is going to run his/her card through your payment gateway? E-commerce doesn’t work for fools – they would select mastercard instead of visa. It doesn’t work for grandmas – they won’t know what a credit card is. Of course it doesn’t work for pphp- Remember, they are poor people, hungry people. Handcuffed people won’t be allowed to visit an e-commerce site anyway, and developers are too busy making that site.

2) Building a Brand: Rolexes and Ferraris don’t sell on the web, but still have well maintained websites. The reason is that they want to build or enhance their brand through a slick website and substantial web presence. Branding doesn’t work for fools – that’s their definition. Might work for grandmas, but they would forget the brand name during lunch time. I’m assuming no branding is necessary for pphp, as they’re not in any target group – they never are. Handcuffed people won’t be allowed to visit a branding site anyway, and developers are too busy making that site.

3) Content: People also use internet to read some free content online. If you have any serious content that’s not about fools or grandmas, then your site is not going to be used by them anyway. Pphp may come to your site, but being too time conscious, before they click on an ad which helps you earn profit,  they’ll either pack up and leave or use their remaining minutes watching desibaba. Handcuffed people won’t be allowed to visit a content site anyway, and developers are too busy making that site.

4) Networking: Who wants fools to be a part of their social or business network? You got it – other fools. If your site analytics shows that IE6 users make 40% of your total users, you know that your networking site is going to die – soon. Grandmas and pphp- ditto. And of course Handcuffed people won’t be allowed to visit a networking site anyway, and developers are too busy making that site.

5) Mail, apps and other useful sites: You can hold IE6 users to ransom and refuse supporting it. If your product is good enough(e.g. youtube, google apps, 37signals), people will upgrade their browsers and come to your site anyway.

Moral of the story: Let it dIE

I’ve always been a big fan of Firefox, at least for the adblock plus extension which doesn’t let me see insane banner ads all day long. If not for speed, I’d have never moved to Chrome at all. It turns out, I was losing out on a lot of fun all the while just by not looking at these orkut ads!  There have been instances of orkut ads going wrong for me, but this one is a HUGE fail. Visualize this:

Orkut wtf

So orkut tried to “Find a match in my community and profession“. These are three epic stupidities in just one sentence! The girl they choose to titillate me with is Ms. Shah, a Gujarati (while I’m a marwadi), who is an MBA (while I’m an Engineer). And of course I’m MARRIED! The probability of me being interested in marrying Ms. Shah would be lesser than me surviving two thunder strikes and dying off a coconut falling on my head. So much for the targeted ads.

Oh, by the way: Facebook isn’t doing too good in terms of targeting either. The post on pluggd.in which talks about Indian matrimonial websites stooping too low also notices this.

Yes, you can congratulate me now. I have bought a house, and man was it a herculean task! So as a veteran in searching a house, going for a housing loan and getting everything mostly right, I’m going to write about what can (and most definitely does) go wrong, and how to beat it.

1) Start with finances. If you don’t have the money to make the down payment, delay it for as long as possible. Don’t think that you’ll arrange it someday. Arrange the money now. Earn, borrow, steal or rob, but have it right now. If the house you’re eyeing is unfurnished, account for shiploads of money (usually >10% of the house price itself) or plan to go for another house furnishing loan.

2) Beware of banks. They say that they will give you 85% (or even 90%) of the sale value of the price, what they mean is that they will give you 80% of the market value (which the banks calculate themselves, and is quite lesser than the sale price). Finalize which bank are you going to go forward with, and start the procedure ASAP. It easily takes 3-4 weeks for any sane bank to actually give you the cheque of the remaining amount from the time you approach them for a housing loan.

3) Actually this should have been point # 1, but here it goes: Maintain a good CIBIL score. Remember the credit card you once defaulted? Or the one you thought was extorting money by asking a lot of stupid ‘finance charges’ and decided to shout at the call centre girl to get it settled for half? My friend, you’ve destroyed half your chances to get a housing (or any other) loan. If affects your eligibility more than anything else. Stay clean, pay your credit card bills, don’t have bounced cheques, don’t make settlements with a bank EVER, pay the full amount.

4) Get married. No seriously, being married gives you a host of advantages. Your credibility in the eyes of bank increases. Your loan eligibility increases if your spouse is working. Your CIBIL score is offset by that of your wife, who has religiously paid all her CC bills always, and never let her bank balance drop to zero. Also, she has most probably spent more time in her present company than you have in your present organization

5) Before paying any amount to the seller, figure out whether you are eligible for the loan that you are looking out for. This is the step when you finalize your bank, submit documents for loan application, and manipulate the seller in delaying the token amount payment. The most amount of hurdles occur at this step. Have you been in your present company for less than a year? Problem! Are you asking for a loan whose EMI exceeds half your monthly salary? More problem.
Make sure you have your identity proof, address proof. PAN card, salary slips, bank statements (for all accounts you hold) for a year. Working in a startup doesn’t exactly help your cause.

6) Assuming that you’ve signed the sale agreement (different from a sale deed), and made the down payment of 15% (or whatever percentage) of your house price, now is the time to get everything fixed in your new house. The seller has smelled blood with the few lacs you’ve paid him, and will be willing to fix anything for the remaining. Check all the switches in the house, any trace of seepage, broken tiles, drainage system, your parking lot, any remaining dues. Lots of stuff to check, really. But its important that you do it now, because once you’ve paid the entire amount… most probably the seller will forget that you or the house exist.

7) Go sign the sale deed. Reach your registration office on time, and keep every document ready. Don’t act over smart and just comply. Do whatever you’re told, pay any overheads (yes, another term for bribe) and you’ll be done in a couple of hours. Your banker will keep the original registration documents and give you a photostat. Make sure you don’t give any more docs to the banker than required. Do not, for example hand over your maintenance agreement or your clubhouse membership to him. You’ll need it.

8 ) If you get a vanilla house, with no wood work whatsoever, you need to also get a house improvement loan. Well that’s for some other day, but the only thing I’d suggest is: Plan the amount you’ll need for getting the furniture done, multiply by 1.5. These things are never cheap, and they aren’t only as expensive as you had planned initially.